The Lake plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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74° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1919. Next is 71° in 2022.
Lake’s center stands about 700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 660 ft to 750 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Tom, about 1,070 ft, 11 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Prairie du Chien Group (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 62×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Lake reaches Lake Michigan by way of Gravelly Brook and the Peshtigo: about 30 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lake has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 44 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 33 inches of water.
On November 14 Lake normally reaches 44° and falls to 29°. The record high is 67°, in 1958; the record low 10°, in 1933. The most rain on this date, 0.70 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1919 at Marinette, 15 miles east-southeast, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
